Hagrid looked at her sadly.

Hagrid looked at her sadly.

‘Golgomath's lot raided the caves. The ones tha’ survived didn’ wan’ no more ter to do with us after that.’

‘So ... so there aren't any giants coming?’ said Ron, looking disappointed.

‘Nope,’ said Hagrid, heaving a deep sigh as he turned over his steak and applied the cooler side to his face, ‘but we did wha’ we meant ter do, we gave ‘em Dumbledore's message an’ some o’ them heard it an’ I spect some o’ them'll remember it. Jus’ maybe, them that don’ want ter stay around Golgomath'll move outta the mountains, an’ there's gotta be a chance they'll remember Dumbledore's friendly to ‘em ... could be they'll come.’

Snow was filling up the window now. Harry became aware that the knees of his robes were soaked through: Fang was drooling with his head in Harry's lap.

‘Hagrid?’ said Hermione quietly after a while.

‘Mmm?’

‘Did you ... was there any sign of ... did you hear anything about your ... your ... mother while you were there?’

Hagrids unobscured eye rested upon her and Hermione looked rather scared.

‘I'm sorry ... I ... forget it—’

‘Dead,’ Hagrid grunted. ‘Died years ago. They told me.’

‘Oh ... I'm ... I'm really sorry,’ said Hermione in a very small voice. Hagrid shrugged his massive shoulders.

‘No need,’ he said shortly. ‘Can't remember her much. Wasn’ a great mother.’

They were silent again. Hermione glanced nervously at Harry and Ron, plainly wanting them to speak.

‘But you still haven't explained how you got in this state, Hagrid,’ Ron said, gesturing towards Hagrid's bloodstained face.

‘Or why you're back so late,’ said Harry. ‘Sirius says Madame Maxime got back ages ago—’

‘Who attacked you?’ said Ron.

‘I haven’ bin attacked!’ said Hagrid emphatically. ‘I—’

But the rest of his words were drowned in a sudden outbreak of rapping on the door. Hermione gasped; her mug slipped through her fingers and smashed on the floor; Fang yelped. All four of them stared at the window beside the doorway. The shadow of somebody small and squat rippled across the thin curtain.

‘It's her!’ Ron whispered.

‘Get under here!’ Harry said quickly, seizing the Invisibility Cloak, he whirled it over himself and Hermione while Ron tore around the table and dived under the Cloak as well. Huddled together, they backed away into a corner. Fang was barking madly at the door. Hagrid looked thoroughly confused.

‘Hagrid, hide our mugs!’

Hagrid seized Harry and Ron's mugs and shoved them under the cushion in Fang's basket. Fang was now leaping up at the door; Hagrid pushed him out of the way with his foot and pulled it open.

Professor Umbridge was standing in the doorway wearing her green tweed cloak and a matching hat with earflaps. Lips pursed, she leaned back so as to see Hagrid's face; she barely reached his navel.

‘So,’ she said slowly and loudly, as though speaking to somebody deaf. ‘You're Hagrid, are you?’

Without waiting for an answer she strolled into the room, her bulging eyes rolling in every direction.

‘Get away,’ she snapped, waving her handbag at Fang, who had bounded up to her and was attempting to lick her face.

‘Er—I don’ want ter be rude,’ said Hagrid, staring at her, ‘but who the ruddy hell are you?’

‘My name is Dolores Umbridge.’

Her eyes were sweeping the cabin. Twice they stared directly into the corner where Harry stood, sandwiched between Ron and Hermione.

‘Dolores Umbridge?’ Hagrid said, sounding thoroughly confused. ‘I thought you were one o’ them Ministry—don’ you work with Fudge?’

‘I was Senior Undersecretary to the Minister, yes,’ said Umbridge, now pacing around the cabin, taking in every tiny detail within, from the haversack against the wall to the abandoned travelling cloak. ‘I am now the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher—’

‘Tha's brave of yeh,’ said Hagrid, ‘there's not many'd take tha’ job any more.’

‘—and Hogwarts High Inquisitor,’ said Umbridge, giving no sign that she had heard him.

‘Wha's that?’ said Hagrid, frowning.

‘Precisely what I was going to ask,’ said Umbridge, pointing at the broken shards of china on the floor that had been Hermione's mug.

‘Oh,’ said Hagrid, with a most unhelpful glance towards the corner where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood hidden, ‘oh, tha’ was ... was Fang. He broke a mug. So I had ter use this one instead.’

Hagrid pointed to the mug from which he had been drinking, one hand still clamped over the dragon steak pressed to his eye. Umbridge stood facing him now, taking in every detail of his appearance instead of the cabins.

‘I heard voices,’ she said quietly.

‘I was talkin’ ter Fang,’ said Hagrid stoutly.

‘And was he talking back to you?’

‘Well ... in a manner o’ speakin',’ said Hagrid, looking uncomfortable. ‘I sometimes say Fang's near enough human—’

‘There are three sets of footprints in the snow leading from the castle doors to your cabin,’ said Umbridge sleekly.

Hermione gasped; Harry clapped a hand over her mouth. Luckily, Fang was sniffing loudly around the hem of Professor Umbridge's robes and she did not appear to have heard.

‘Well, I on'y jus’ got back,’ said Hagrid, waving an enormous hand at the haversack. ‘Maybe someone came ter call earlier an’ I missed ‘em.’

‘There are no footsteps leading away from your cabin door.’

‘Well, I ... I don’ know why that'd be ...’ said Hagrid, tugging nervously at his beard and again glancing towards the corner where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood, as though asking for help. ‘Erm ...’

Umbridge wheeled round and strode the length of the cabin, looking around carefully. She bent and peered under the bed. She opened Hagrid's cupboards. She passed within two inches of where Harry, Ron and Hermione stood pressed against the wall; Harry actually pulled in his stomach as she walked by. After looking carefully inside the enormous cauldron Hagrid used for cooking, she wheeled round again and said, ‘What has happened to you? How did you sustain those injuries?’

Hagrid hastily removed the dragon steak from his face, which in Harry's opinion was a mistake, because the black and purple bruising all around his eye was now clearly visible, not to mention the large amount of fresh and congealed blood on his face. ‘Oh, I ... had a bit of an accident,’ he said lamely.

‘What sort of accident?’

‘I—I tripped.’

‘You tripped,’ she repeated coolly.

‘Yeah, tha's right. Over ... over a friends broomstick. I don’ fly, meself. Well, look at the size o’ me, I don’ reckon there's a broomstick that'd hold me. Friend o’ mine breeds Abraxan horses, I dunno if you ve ever seen em, big beasts, winged, yer know, I've had a bit of a ride on one o’ them an’ it was—’

‘Where have you been?’ asked Umbridge, cutting coolly through Hagrid's babbling.

‘Where've I—?’

‘Been, yes,’ she said. ‘Term started two months ago. Another teacher has had to cover your classes. None of your colleagues has been able to give me any information as to your whereabouts. You left no address. Where have you been?’

There was a pause in which Hagrid stared at her with his newly uncovered eye. Harry could almost hear his brain working furiously.

‘I—I've been away for me health,’ he said.

‘For your health,’ repeated Professor Umbridge. Her eyes travelled over Hagrid's discoloured and swollen face; dragon blood dripped gently and silently on to his waistcoat. ‘I see.’

‘Yeah,’ said Hagrid, ‘bit o'—o’ fresh air, yeh know—’

‘Yes, as gamekeeper fresh air must be so difficult to come by’ said Umbridge sweetly. The small patch of Hagrid's face that was not black or purple, flushed.

‘Well—change o’ scene, yeh know—’

‘Mountain scenery?’ said Umbridge swiftly.

She knows, Harry thought desperately.