Hagrid
Hermione ran faster than she thought she could. Hiking her bare feet up high through the snow, she didn’t feel cold or hurt or tired, just an urgent need to get away as fast as she could. Light shot past her like fireworks and Hermione threw herself into the underbrush to get away. Glancing behind her, she saw that the things chasing her weren’t monsters or animals, but two people wearing intricate snake-like masks, designed to be horrifying. They wore black robes that billowed out behind them. She scrambled to her feet and changed direction, still going as fast as she could.
She didn’t know what would happen if one of the blasts of light hit her. Maybe it would hurt her, maybe it would kill her. Hermione had never been good at dodgeball, and had never considered that it might have much value. She was now regretful she hadn’t tried harder in PE. She saw Lucky and scooped him up.
‘LACERO!’ one of the men shouted, and a streak of red light shot through the frosty air towards Hermione. Hermione ducked and ran for cover behind a log, but couldn’t avoid the streak of magic. She felt a sharp pain on her shoulder, and looked down to see that her sleeve and skin had been sliced cleanly through. Not to the bone, but deep. Blood quickly soaked her clothes. ‘Lacero’ they had said. It sounded like ‘lacerate’ She would be fine. She would be fine. If it had hit Lucky he would be dead.
She tried to heal her shoulder, like she had healed wounds in the past, but it didn’t work. Before she had time to try again the two men were already right behind her. She crawled around to the other side of the log and ran across a small clearing through the woods.
‘EXPULSO!’ she heard from behind her as she sprinted around a tree.
Expulso? Hermione didn’t know what that meant. Could that mean—
CRACK. The branches of the tree she had just hid behind suddenly burst to pieces, wood and ice flying everywhere. The tree cracked dangerously. Okay, so expulso meant ‘explode’. This time she knew that if it had hit her she would be dead. She shuddered.
‘CRUCIO!’
Hermione dropped to the ground, just barely missing a streak of red light that shot over her head. Lucky yowled and hissed at the men. Crucio. It sounded like ‘crucify’. Hermione’s heart raced. Hermione tried to get up but her bare hand slipped on the ice. She glanced up at the men approaching. They were no longer flying, but striding towards her confidently. In their hands they held what looked like brooms, and the strangeness of that stunned Hermione for a moment. Without pausing, one of the men gestured with his wand, and a rope slithered out of the tip of it and shot out towards her. She scrambled back on her hands, but the rope was faster than she was. It wrapped around her ankles and pulled her forward towards the men like it had a mind of its own. She scrambled to hold onto something but all she got was handfuls of snow.
Desperately she pulled out her stolen wand and brandished it at the men. ‘Ex-expulso!’ she shouted, hoping to blow them to bits. Nothing happened. She pointed the wand at the rope ‘Lacero!’ The rope only twisted tighter around her, and soon her arms were trapped tightly against the sides of her body. One of the men laughed.
‘The muggle’s trying to do magic!’ he crowed.
Lucky leapt forward furiously, claws bared, ready to attack, and one of the men casually waved his wand, batting Lucky aside. His body collided hard with a tree, and he fell to the ground.
Hermione’s whole body shook, and not from the cold.
The man looked over to his partner casually, as if bored. He started to speak when suddenly a giant motorbike came flying over Hermione’s head, roaring as it came crashing through the snowy canopy and raining down branches and ice. The motorbike crashed into the men and sent them into the air where they landed in the snow. The brooms they held in their hands were cracked and split.
One of them seemed to be knocked unconscious, the other was wearily regaining his footing, but his mask had been knocked off by the motorbike hit. She recognized him, he was the same man who had been at her house that night, who had attacked her parents. Who made them forget her, who took them from her, and her from them. The hard, emotionless look in his eyes sent shivers down her spine. They seemed devoid of anything human.
The man dwarfed the motorbike he rode. He was the largest man Hermione had ever seen. He pulled out a wand, the longest one she had seen, probably about half a metre long, and waved it at Hermione. She had a moment of panic before the ropes that had tied her up just loosened and fell off her.
‘Well, get in,’ the giant said, gesturing to the attached sidecar. He looked down at her kindly. His eyes were black as well, but full of sympathy.
Hermione was still shaking. Why should she trust this person? She should probably run away from all of these insane people, but what if they found her again? What if this giant had answers to her questions? He did save her. She looked over at the men lying on the ground. Who were they? What did they want with her? Why had that man made her parents forget she existed?
The men that had attacked her were moving, and moving towards her again, this time on foot.
‘Quickly, if yeh please,’ the giant said.
Hermione stood up and picked up Lucky, wrapping her arms around him. He meowed unhappily. Hopefully being knocked around like that hadn’t hurt him too badly. Hermione just managed to scramble into the sidecar at the last second. The giant revved the engine and the motorbike took off up through the air. Hermione screamed and held on tightly to her seat, hoping not to get thrown off as the motorbike continued to pick up speed. Lucky’s claws dug into her arm. She looked over her shoulder, and the men who attacked her disappeared behind the snowy treetops.
‘Can’t they fly after us?’ Hermione said, panicky.
The giant chuckled. ‘They don’t got any brooms, now, do they? Those brooms were broken clean in two.’
Hermione couldn’t react. Was he kidding? She couldn’t tell. Had they legitimately been using brooms to fly? She looked down at her shoulder. It was still bleeding, but not as quickly as before. She hadn’t noticed the pain until now. It was a dull, throbbing ache. The giant glanced down at her, worriedly.
‘I’ll get yeh fixed up, don’t yeh worry. I’ve gotta get us far away so they can’t track us first, alright?’
Hermione nodded silently, hoping he would hurry.
As if he had read her mind, the flying motorbike picked up speed, and the wind filled her lungs.
Hermione felt dizzy and exhausted. She had probably lost a lot of blood. Eventually they landed in a bright, snowy clearing, away from any nearby roads. When they touched down Hermione stood and climbed shakily out of the sidecar. Her trepidation about the giant was returning. It seemed like an immensely stupid decision to trust this magical stranger, and now she was completely isolated with him.
But he hadn’t hurt her yet, and maybe he wasn’t planning to hurt her. She didn’t know what to do. She swayed, clutching her bleeding shoulder.
The giant turned towards her, and pointed his wand right at her. She had made the wrong decision. She should have run away from all of them. She should have never gotten on a bleeding flying motorbike, of all the stupid decisions. She pulled out her stolen wand again and brandished it at him.
‘Don’t try anything!’ she shouted.
The giant froze. ‘I’m not going to hurt yeh,’ he said. ‘I jus’ want ter help,’ Lucky seemed to have recovered from the motorbike flight, and was now purring and rubbing up against the giant’s leg.
‘I can do magic!’ she bluffed. It felt like a lie.
‘I know yeh can,’ he said. ‘Yeh’re a witch, Hermione.’
Something in Hermione shifted. She could do magic. He was the first person who knew she could do magic other than her parents. She was a witch.
The giant took a cautious step forward. Hermione didn’t move. She didn’t feel like she was in a state to run. Her head felt fuzzy, she could barely think straight, let alone run through snowy woods at night. Running had seemed like the rational thing to do, but she couldn’t remember why.
The giant gently hovered his wand over her shoulder. ‘Episkey,’ he said, gently.
Hermione flinched, but instead of being sliced open or blown to pieces, her shoulder healed. The pain ebbed away, and the blood flow stopped. She looked at it, and what was previously a fresh gaping wound now looked weeks old. It was just like her healing magic. Which reminded her.
‘I tried to heal it earlier, but it didn’t work,’ she said.
‘Curses. They can be nasty. Difficult to heal.’ he said.
Alright then. Hermione said nothing. She felt wobbly. The giant held out a bottle to her.
‘Here. I know yeh won’t want to drink summat a stranger gives yeh, but this is blood replenishing potion. Yeh’ll feel better.’
Hermione reached forward and took it. She considered for a moment, and popped the cork off. She sniffed it, and handed it back to him.
‘If you take a sip of it first, I’ll drink it.’
The giant held the bottle to his lips and took a small sip, before handing it back to Hermione. Hermione took a sip of it, and swallowed it with difficulty. It tasted awful. But she almost instantly felt better. Less dizzy, less drowsy, full of questions.
‘Who are you?’
‘True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, member of the Order of the Phoenix.’ He held out an enormous hand and shook Hermione’s whole arm. Her uninjured one, thank god.
‘What about that tea then, eh?’ he said, rubbing his hands together. With a wave of his wand some stumps came floating over, and turned themselves into very stumpy chairs. He sat, and a few more twigs and branches flew over, he bent down over them, and Hermione couldn’t see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. Hermione felt the warmth wash over her as though she'd sunk into a hot bath.
Hagrid sat back down on the stump chair, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the air was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Hermione silently compiled a list of questions to ask him, but when he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker she momentarily forgot all about her questions in favour of eating.
As she ate, she watched as Hagrid pulled a real owl from his overcoat along with a long quill and a roll of parchment. Hermione had never seen an owl up close before, and she felt an affinity for its ruffled, exhausted appearance. Hermione read his note upside down as she ate, but it wasn’t interesting.
Weather’s good. I found your coat and will bring it back shortly.
Hope you’re well,
H
Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl. Hagrid spoke softly to the owl, too low for Hermione to hear properly. It sounded like he said something about a weasel. The owl seemed to listen before flying off into the cloudy sky. Hermione supposed that was how witches sent mail. She wondered if the owl was flying above the clouds right now. She took a sip of her hot tea. God, it was nice to have tea. She took a deep breath, and looked straight at Hagrid.
‘So, I’m a witch?’
‘Tha’s the word for people who can do magic, like you,’ he replied.
‘So… you’re a warlock, then?’
Hagrids eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘I’m a wizard.’
‘How did you know my name?’
‘Well, it’s a bit of a long story,’
‘Tell me, please.’
‘I better make more tea, then.’ Hagrid got up and proceeded to do that. Hermione’s mind was racing, but she probably ought to just listen to Hagrid first.