Chapter 301: Hagrid's Return

After the pleasant Halloween and the big victory in the first match, life in November returned to calm. The Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters were advancing their work in an orderly manner, and neither interfered with the other.

Except for Mundungus's investigation into Hoffa still going off track as always, others had more or less gained some harvest, such as confirming that the Horcruxes in the hands of the two Death Eaters were the big snake Nagini and the golden cup, determining several ways to destroy Horcruxes, and counting some action team members who volunteered. It could be said that everything was ready, and now they only needed to find out where the Death Eaters put the Horcruxes.

And the several meetings of the Death Eaters almost didn't mention Horcruxes. This was easy to understand. After all, Regulus and Severus, these two heavyweights, were both moles, and Hoffa's weight was not heavy, but he was also a mole. Lucius was not a mole, but he was an ambitious person, busy pulling in small and medium-sized families for his own use. In this situation, Bellatrix, the only one still fighting wits and courage with the Order of the Phoenix, naturally had no interest in sharing her work.

Suddenly, a surprising good news spread throughout the school, and all the students discussed it enthusiastically, adding a lot of waves to life—Hagrid was back.

On a quiet afternoon, Harry and Luo En decided to visit Hagrid.

Hagrid should have finished a certain stage of his trip. He spent some time tidying up the hut. Although things were still messy and numerous, at least it was tidier, and the accumulated dust was wiped clean. His tea-boiling stove was placed on the fire at this time, revealing a shiny luster.

"I originally didn't intend to tell you about this, it counts as a secret of the Order of the Phoenix." He hummed, but a smile still couldn't stop appearing on his face. "However, you probably guessed it, I went to find the giants."

"You found them?"

"This is not hard to find, they live in a mountain, I know where it is, just need to look for it after entering the mountain." Hagrid drank a sip of tea. "We set off at the beginning of August, climbing rocks and sleeping in caves all the way. I originally didn't think Olympe could stand this, she always dressed so elegantly, but she didn't complain once."

"You mean, you went with someone else, it was Madame Maxime?" Harry asked.

"Right, she looks quite strong, instead it was me, sometimes thinking of Deng Buliduo, eh," Hagrid said, couldn't help but wipe the corners of his eyes.

Madame Maxime was French after all, Deng Buliduo's death wasn't all bad for her, Harry thought with some ill intent.

"We set off from Dijon, stayed in many cities, this was to let the European continent see Beauxbatons' attitude, but Olympe said this was 'unofficial', a bit complicated..." Hagrid continued talking. "We stopped and went, it was quite interesting."

"Finally we entered the mountain, looked for three or four days, and finally found them. I didn't expect there were only seventy or eighty giants left." Hagrid said with some sadness. "We easily talked to the Gurg, I mean, the leader of the giants, sent gifts for a few days, and then warned them to hide far away and not be found by the Death Eaters."

"However, I feel the Death Eaters might not necessarily spend effort to find the giants." Harry recalled the situation now and said with some amusement.

"No, they looked for them." Hagrid said seriously. "I had looked for the giants before, but at that time I only found a very small community. I only know now that the Mysterious Man had sent people to look for them long ago. These giants ran to his subordinates last year. But good luck was, the leader who was close to the Death Eaters died in a fight before, and the current leader is very good to us, he happily accepted our suggestion."

"That's about it, the giant matter is considered a paragraph, next I have to prepare to be busy with something else." Hagrid leaned comfortably on the back of the chair, Fang licking his hand with a rumbling sound.

"Will you stay here?" Luo En asked with some expectation.

"No, next I'm going to find a kind of magical animal." Hagrid shook his head. "And staying here is useless, my class is not taught well."

"You teach quite well." Harry said sincerely. "The new professor almost doesn't talk about magical animals."

"Then what does he teach?" Hagrid was a bit curious.

"Stunning Spell, Cutting Curse, Fire Curse, and even Explosion Curse." Luo En rolled his eyes and said. "The most he says is 'remove the head, the remaining part can be eaten'."

"Hmm, I think he is actually not wrong." Hagrid said sincerely. "Olympe told me, can't always use your own ideas to replace students' thinking. For you, learning to protect yourself before learning to protect magical animals might still be quite meaningful."

After a short silence, Hagrid took a dog food can from the cabinet and started feeding Fang.

"This can." Harry sat up suddenly. "Is it Wolf-Run brand?"

"Right, Fang became addicted to it after tasting it once, I don't know why either." Hagrid held up the can and looked at it. "I bought it in a Muggle store in London, they said this is the flavor dogs like most."

"Very normal, because this is Sirius's industry." Harry couldn't help laughing out loud. Seeing his godfather's product being so popular, he was also very happy in his heart.

"Oh, right, he can taste the flavor himself." Luo En also laughed.

They chatted for a while longer about Sirius. Then, a rhythmic knocking on the door interrupted the conversation.

"Mr. Hagrid, I have always wanted to talk to you." Arnold stood outside the door wearing a navy blue suit, a faint smile on his face.

"Now?" Hagrid looked into the house. "I this..."

"I specifically chose this time, just to talk to Harry together too." Arnold nodded, his tone very firm.

"What do you want to say?" After they sat down, Hagrid asked curiously.

"You should know, besides the main job of a teacher, I have another position, right?" Arnold said in a measured tone. "As Hogwarts Senior Investigator, I am prepared to launch an investigation into the former Magical Creatures professor Rubeus Hagrid."

Harry and Hagrid became nervous all of a sudden.

"First of all, what we are most concerned about is Hagrid's relationship with Deng Buliduo. This is also the reason why I hope Harry observes." Arnold's tone carried a trace of seriousness. "I hope you tell me truthfully."

"Uh, Deng Buliduo is a very good person, he took me in," obviously Hagrid's positioning of himself was a bit unclear, "I tried very hard to want to help him."

"No, Hagrid, you are too humble." Whether it was telling the truth or out of protection for Hagrid, Harry had to firmly tell Arnold that Deng Buliduo actually trusted Hagrid quite a lot. "Deng Buliduo regarded you as a confidant, he handed the most important things to you to do. Do you still remember the Sorcerer's Stone?"

Hagrid's expression was a bit strange, but Harry continued, "And you also underestimated your own strength, Hagrid, we all think you are a first-class magical animal scientist in the world."

From a certain perspective, Hagrid himself was a magical animal, so this couldn't be counted as wrong.

"Mentioning magical animals, I think there happens to be a matter worth saying, that is the Chamber of Secrets monster." Arnold flipped the notebook to the blank next page and continued to ask, "It is said that the Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest is related to you, is it true?"

"Uh," Hagrid became nervous all of a sudden, but he still said honestly, "I did raise a spider..."

"But you didn't expect his children would eventually become a big disaster in the Forbidden Forest, right?" Arnold raised his eyebrows and asked.

"It can't be completely said to be a disaster," Hagrid tried hard to word it, wanting to defend Aragog a few words, "they still have some contributions, for example, uh..."

"Even if Hagrid had a slight mistake in this matter, Deng Buliduo chose to continue letting him serve as the wild area manager and take over the Magical Creatures class, which exactly shows Deng Buliduo's trust in Hagrid." Harry changed the topic.

"Very reasonable." Arnold narrowed his eyes. "The last question is, what do you think of Hagrid's teaching level? Would you hope for him to continue serving as the professor of the Magical Creatures course?"

"I think Hagrid has a level in teaching students. Reasonably and emotionally, he can continue to teach us these." Luo En grabbed to say.

"No, no, children, I think I actually don't teach very well." Hagrid said sincerely. "And compared to teaching students, I think I have more urgent things to do."

"Very good." Arnold smiled and put away the paper and pen. "Usually, the result of launching an investigation is always finding nothing. 'Launching an investigation' itself is just to avoid people really finding anything."

"You mean?" Hagrid was a bit confused.

"You can continue to do anything you want to do, Mr. Hagrid." Arnold stood up and reached out to take his hat. "The Ministry of Magic needs to clarify some doubts about you. Now it seems, sure enough, these are all groundless."

After Arnold left, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Luo En analyzed very naturally: "It must be that someone doesn't want you to continue teaching, Hagrid. But the good news is, the Ministry of Magic stands on our side."

"Perhaps, the reason the Ministry of Magic chose to stand on our side is that Hagrid took the initiative to propose giving up teaching." Harry said helplessly. "They are always like this, seeing the wind and steering the rudder."

"It doesn't matter." Hagrid laughed happily. "Knowing that the Senior Investigator is toward Hogwarts makes me very happy."

They enjoyed the remaining wonderful afternoon tea time, until early the next morning, Harry realized that Arnold's implication was that if the Ministry of Magic needed to draw any conclusion, then they would definitely not conduct an investigation: Sybill Trelawney was carrying a huge suitcase, looking sorrowful, standing in the center of the entrance hall, holding a wine bottle in one hand and a wand in the other, looking at Arnold, who was calm and composed, with pleading eyes.

"I have been here for sixteen years! You can't—" her tears flowed down her cheeks, "I beg you not to fire me." ===== CHAPTER 302 =====