𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸, harry potter

˗ˋ 166

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED
AND SIXTY SIX
✧
-: fifth year :-

── IN WHICH THEY FIND 
OUT THE RESULTS FROM 
THE MATCH

. . .

Grawp lost interest after that. He had straightened up again and was once more playing with the pine tree, pulling it back as far as it would go.

"Righ'." Hagrid said thickly, one hand pinching his bleeding nose and the other grasping his crossbow. He glanced nervously at Aviana beside him. "Good to know yeh can handle him." He said, and turned to the other two as they carefully approached. "Well... there yeh are... Yeh've met him an' - an' now he'll know yeh when yeh come back. Yeah... well..." He looked up at Grawp, who was pulling back the pine with an expression of detached pleasure on his boulder-like face; the roots were creaking as he ripped them away from the ground. "Well, I reckon tha's enough fer one day. We'll - er - we'll go back now, shall we?" 

"Yes, I think that's a good idea." Aviana said, and reached for her wand, flicking it once in the air and the tip lighting up. Harry and Hermione nodded in agreement. 

Hagrid pulled the crossbow over his shoulder once again, and, still pinching his nose, led the way back into the trees. Nobody spoke for a while, not even when hearing the distant crash that told them Grawp had pulled over the pine tree at last. Hermione's face was pale and set, Aviana's in a scowl, her arms still folded. Harry could not think of a single thing to say. 

What would people say when they found out that Hagrid had been hiding a giant in the forest? And he had promised that he, Aviana, Ron and Hermione would continue Hagrid's seemingly pointless attempts to civilize the giant... How could Hagrid, even with his immense capacity to delude himself that fanged monsters were lovably harmless, fool himself that Grawp would ever be fit to mix with humans? 

"Hold it." Hagrid told them abruptly, just as Aviana, Harry and Hermione were struggling through a thick patch of knotgrass behind him. Hagrid pulled an arrow from the quiver strapped to his back and fitted it to his crossbow. Harry, Hermione and Aviana raised their wands in the direction they could hear the sound. Now that they had stopped walking, they too could hear it. 

"Oh blimey." Hagrid muttered.

"I thought that we told you, Hagrid," a deep male voice said, "that you are no longer welcome here?" 

Aviana directed her wand over to the sound before lowering it quickly, the sight of a man's torso attached to a horse's chestnut body enough to scare her. This centaur had proud, high-cheekboned face and long black hair and, like Hagrid, he was armed with a quiver full of arrows and a long bow slung over his shoulders. 

"How are yeh, Magorian?" Hagrid asked warily. 

Four or five more centaurs emerged from trees behind Magorian. Harry recognised one - Bane - from the same night he had met Firenze, but Bane gave no sign of having met Harry before. "So, he said, with a nasty inflection in his voice, turning immediately to Magorian, "We agreed, I think, what we would do if this human showed his face in the forest again?" 

"'This human' now, am I?" Hagrid replied testily. "Jus' fer stoppin' all of yeh committin' murder?" He asked.

"You ought not to have meddled, Hagrid." Magorian replied. "Our ways are not yours, nor are out laws. Firenze has betrayed and dishonoured us."