Friday, September 6, 1991, 3:00 p.m.
This was a small wooden cabin at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
A patch of land behind the cabin was planted with pumpkins and broad beans.
In front of the door sat a crossbow and a pair of rubber boots.
Inside lived Hogwarts's hidden millionaire, master of Fantastic Beasts hybridization, half-giant wizard Hagrid, along with his timid great dog, Fang.
Harry knocked on the door.
Together with Ron, he listened curiously to the barking inside and Hagrid's voice.
Hermione stayed close to Basil's side, studying the Forbidden Forest beside them with great interest.
Basil's thoughts had drifted elsewhere, returning to the Three-Headed Dog he had recently tried to use to make a Summoning Card.
The price of 5,000 gems had deterred him.
He only had 16,865.477 gems at the moment.
The Harry, Ron, Draco, Hagrid, and Neville Echoes he had yet to make would cost another 5,000.
Not to mention that crossing worlds to retrieve components cost 30,000.
Though the fact that dying in another world only required a 100-gem interdimensional fee meant it was not a one-way ticket, perhaps even a permanent passage.
Still, he was hardly well-off right now.
With a creak, the door opened.
Hagrid opened the door a crack, revealing his enormous bearded face.
"Hold on," he said. "Back up, Fang."
Seeing that there were four visitors, he stepped back at once and opened the door fully.
He held a black hunting dog, half Ron's size and wagging its tail nonstop, in his arms.
The cabin had only one room.
Hams and pheasants hung from the ceiling. A copper kettle boiled over the fire, and a pink umbrella with a floral pattern leaned against the wall.
A large bed stood in the corner, covered in a patchwork quilt made from scraps of cloth.
It did not look luxurious at all, utterly unbefitting Hagrid's status as a hidden millionaire.
But that was only at first glance.
Upon closer inspection, Basil noticed a mattress beneath the quilt that seemed to be made from the fur of some unknown creature.
The thread at its seams gleamed silver, white as pearls.
They were clearly Unicorn Tail Hair.
Ten Galleons per strand!
That was fifty pounds, or four hundred yuan at the 1991 exchange rate!
China's average wage at the time was only 195 yuan!
"That's Unicorn Tail Hair, isn't it?" Basil pointed out without hesitation.
Hagrid, who was busy pouring boiling water into a large teapot while placing Rock Cakes onto a plate, looked up.
"Oh, it's unicorn hair," he said carelessly. "Pulled from their tails. It got caught on branches in the forest..."
"Galloping Gorgons!" Ron turned his head bit by bit, as though his neck had rusted stiff.
The hand he had been using to fend off Fang's ear-licking also stretched forward, frozen in a desperate gesture.
"Hag-rid—you know how much that's worth, right?!"
A single Unicorn Tail Hair was four or five feet long, while making a wand only required one strand.
Ron touched the unicorn-tail-hair wand he had received from his brother Charlie, his feelings extremely complicated.
"When animals get hurt, I use it to tie bandages," Hagrid said with a shrug. "Works especially well... really sturdy. It's great as sewing thread too. Look."
"Can I take some?" Basil coughed. "I want to practice weaving. They should make a fairly thin, light glove."
Hagrid nodded casually and pushed aside the hams and pheasants hanging from the ceiling, revealing a bundle of long, smooth, glossy white hair.
He tore it down casually and handed it to Basil.
"Is this enough?"
"Enough, enough." Basil gently stroked the tail hair, which smelled faintly of meat, as though caressing a lover's skin.
This was all money!
No matter where one was, women's money was always the easiest to earn.
And the main ingredient of Beauty Potion was Unicorn Tail Hair.
Potion ingredient shops sold it too, ten Galleons a bag.
But they sold mane hair. Its effects were inferior to tail hair in the first place, and the whole bag might not even be as long as this tail hair.
Aside from Ron occasionally gazing enviously at the white hair Basil had wound around his wrist.
What followed seemed more or less the same as in the film.
Hagrid took the lead in complaining about Filch and his cat.
Harry and Ron naturally brought up Snape.
Harry said Snape hated him.
Hagrid avoided Harry's eyes and the subject, dismissing Harry's guess as false.
Yet Hermione, who had been staring foolishly at Basil all this time, spoke up.
"I know why."
"Professor Snape said some strange things in the sorting waiting room. I got curious afterward and looked into it."
Hagrid wiped away a cold sweat. "Kids, let's talk about something else."
Harry said, "Go on. I want to know why he hates me so much!"
Ron said, "Me too."
Basil put a hand on Hagrid's shoulder. "You can't hide this forever. If Hermione could find out, how can you be sure Harry won't? At least you're here with him."
Seeing Hagrid calm down, Hermione looked at Basil admiringly before continuing. "I learned from the portraits that Snape and Harry's mother used to be a couple. Because of that, Harry's father often targeted him with three friends. Later, for some reason, Snape and Harry's mother fell out. Harry's father took advantage of the opportunity."
"Three? Was my dad like Dudley?" Harry looked dazed. "Hagrid, didn't you say I looked exactly like my dad?"
He suddenly imagined himself as Snape.
A father who looked like Dudley, with friends who looked like Piers, Malcolm, and Gordon,
"What was their group called? The James Gang? Like Dudley's Gang?"
Hagrid hurriedly explained, "They were called the Marauders. And James wasn't that sort of person! At most, they liked playing pranks on people!"
"Like Fred and George?" A flicker of hope flashed in Harry's eyes.
Hagrid began to stammer. "Much worse than that. But the school environment back then wasn't like it is now! You-Know-Who was wreaking havoc outside, and nearly all Slytherin students were Death Eater recruits. Conflicts between students were much more brutal too! Everyone liked James and his friends! They saw them as heroes. Most of the people they pranked were Slytherin students and those close to them."
"So Snape was one of those people." Harry's tone relaxed considerably.
Hagrid's eyes shifted away.
"Your father and his friends thought so. But as far as I can see, Snape only made the wrong choice of Slytherin because he grew up in the Muggle World and didn't understand the situation in the wizarding world back then. In the years afterward, he stayed friends with Lily, who was Muggle-born. He wasn't really a bad person."
He tried to find something good to say, but nothing seemed applicable to Snape.
"And Lily was kind-hearted and an excellent student. All the teachers liked her. To your father and his friends, Snape was undoubtedly a stain on your mother. And Snape seemed to have been at odds with them from the train ride onward, so—"
Thinking Snape had always been Dumbledore's spy, he did not mention that Snape had later joined the Death Eaters and remained close to Avery and Mulciber, who often played horrifying pranks with Dark Magic.
Avery and Mulciber had even once tried to target Lily's friend Mary Macdonald.
Having mistaken Sirius for the traitor, he also believed that Sirius, that despicable fellow, had been stirring things up between Snape and James all along.
But he could not tell Harry any of that.
It was too cruel.
Original
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