May had arrived, and June was drawing near.
The sun stayed in the sky longer and longer. At seven in the evening, a bright, chipped moon had just appeared in the southeastern sky, while the layered clouds above the southwestern horizon still glowed with a blood-red radiance.
To avoid the sweltering heat that still lingered at five or six in the evening, Harry and the others had taken to jogging around the grounds after dinner.
When the three of them arrived at the Quidditch Pitch, Harry glanced toward the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Seeing the door of the little hut draped in crimson-gold light tightly shut, he sighed in disappointment.
Hagrid had left the school not long after Voldemort's return. Like Professor Breen, he had been missing for nearly two months.
Harry knew Hagrid had gone to carry out a task assigned by Professor Dumbledore, but after so long without any sign of his return, he could not help worrying that Hagrid had met with some misfortune. After all, Hagrid did not possess the reassuring strength of Professor Breen or Professor Dumbledore.
Of course, Hagrid was most likely safe. If something had happened to him, Dumbledore could not possibly have appeared in the Great Hall punctually at every mealtime over the past two months, wearing a gentle smile as he chatted with Professor McGonagall and the increasingly gloomy-faced Snape.
Their last conversation with Hagrid had not been particularly pleasant, because he refused to tell them what important task Dumbledore had assigned him. Hagrid had said that Dumbledore had instructed him not to.
That had inevitably angered teenagers at such an emotionally sensitive age.
But that anger had faded away over the course of two months. Now, Harry's heart was filled only with concern for Hagrid, so much so that