Change

After Potions, they had no more classes that day. At five to three, the three of them—Harry, Tierra, and Ron, who had insisted on coming along—left the castle, crossed the fields, and arrived at Hagrid's hut on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

When Harry knocked, they heard a tense struggle from inside, along with several deep barks. Then came Hagrid's voice: "Back up, Fang, back up."

Hagrid opened the door a crack, revealing his huge, bearded face.

"Wait a moment," he said. "Back up, Fang."

Hagrid let them in while desperately gripping the collar of an enormous black hunting dog.

The hut had only one room. Hams and pheasants hung from the ceiling, a copper kettle boiled over the fire, and a large bed stood in the corner, covered with a patchwork quilt.

"Make yourselves at home," Hagrid said, letting Fang go.

Fang immediately sprang at Ron and began licking his ears, but with a casual stroke from Tierra, he turned and started rubbing his drool all over Tierra instead.

Tierra had owned a small dog in his previous life. Sadly, it had been very old and had passed away before he began his doctorate. Otherwise, if that dog had known its little master would never return, how heartbroken it would have been.

Like Hagrid, Fang was clearly nowhere near as fierce as he looked. At Tierra's practiced touch, he immediately rolled onto the floor and exposed his belly.

"Fang really likes you, Tierra," Hagrid said with a laugh. He poured Harry, Ron, and Tierra each a mug of strong hot tea, then took a pile of large gray cakes from the oven that looked like rocks and gave off a faintly sweet scent.

"This is Ron," Harry told Hagrid. Hagrid was moving Rock Cakes from the baking tray to a serving plate one by one.

"Another little Weasley brother, right?" Hagrid said, glancing at Ron's red hair. "I practically spent half my life chasing your twin brothers out of the Forbidden Forest."

Then Hagrid asked them about their classes.

Harry and Ron eagerly told Hagrid all the amusing things that had happened since school started.

"Snape gave you five points!?" Hagrid's mouth fell open, and crumbs from a Rock Cake dropped into his thick beard.

"He's never given Gryffindor points before! It'd be good enough if he didn't deduct points from Gryffindor!" Hagrid said in astonishment. "What did you do for him to actually give you points?"

"Harry answered three of Snape's questions!" Ron said proudly, as though he had been the one to answer them. "Three questions nobody else could answer!"

Ron had clearly overlooked the fact that Hermione, who sat beside him, had been frantically raising her hand the entire time.

"No, I didn't, I..." Harry glanced nervously at Tierra and found him seemingly absorbed in petting Fang, not taking part in their conversation.

Just as he was about to explain, Hagrid's gruff voice suddenly said, "I remember Lily... Harry's mother, Lily Potter, was also very good at Potions when she was at school."

"My mum was good at Potions too?!" Harry suddenly grew excited and forgot all about explaining himself.

"Yes." After thinking for a moment, Hagrid said, "I'd already been Hogwarts' Keeper of Keys and Grounds for a long time back then. Well, your mother, Lily, was the kindest and cleverest witch I'd seen in all those years. She was good at many subjects while she was at Hogwarts. It was hard to believe she was a witch from a Muggle family, and Potions was what she was best at."

"Oh, right. She and Snape were very close back then. One was in Gryffindor and the other in Slytherin, but they got along very well," Hagrid recalled.

"My mum and Snape were friends?" Harry was even more shocked. He found it hard to believe that Snape—the sharp-tongued, greasy-haired, sinister Slytherin—had been his mother's close friend.

"Yeah, the really close kind of friends. At first, you could say they were inseparable. Aside from sleeping, they stuck together in class, at meals, even during study periods," Hagrid answered.

"What happened later?" Harry asked. He desperately wanted to know everything about his mother.

"Later... later, Snape... cough, I mean Professor Snape, had a disagreement with your mother over something. In the end, they went their separate ways, and your mother married your father, James Potter."

"What kind of disagreement?" Harry pressed.

"Er... I don't know." Hagrid avoided the question, seemingly unwilling to discuss the topic. "Oh, right, Ron, how's your brother Charlie?"

Hagrid awkwardly changed the subject. "I like him a lot. He's always had a way with magical creatures."

As Ron told Hagrid about Charlie's work studying dragons, Harry noticed a small scrap of paper pinned beneath the tea cosy. It was an excerpt cut from The Daily Prophet.

The investigation into the illegal break-in at Gringotts on July thirty-first was still ongoing.

It was widely believed to have been the work of unnamed Dark wizards and witches.

The goblins of Gringotts once again stressed today that nothing had been stolen.

The underground vault searched by the intruders had, in fact, been emptied earlier that same day.

When faced with those irritating reporters swarming like flies this afternoon, a Gringotts goblin spokesperson said, "What was stored in the vault is confidential. Please do not interfere in this matter."

"Hagrid!" Harry suddenly remembered what Ron had told him. He and Tierra had worried before that a Dark wizard might attack Hagrid, but after getting off the train and seeing Hagrid safe and sound, he had put it out of his mind.

But now the newspaper clearly said that the raided vault had been emptied that morning. The item taken must very likely have been that grimy little package Hagrid had brought them to collect!

"Hagrid, the day Gringotts was robbed was the same day we went there. That robber couldn't have been after that 7—"

"Oh, my God!" Hagrid suddenly cried out. His huge head jerked about as he glanced at the clock on the wall.

"Oh God," Hagrid said. "It's gotten so late."

Hagrid hurriedly grabbed his coat.

"I'm terribly sorry, children. I-I just remembered, I've got an appointment with the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. At four o'clock, to... to visit the unicorns, yes, visit those poor unicorns. They've been attacked, and I need to go check on them."

"I'm so sorry, children. Here, take these, take more." As he spoke, Hagrid stuffed Rock Cakes from the table into Ron and Harry's arms. "And Tierra, yes, you take some too."

"I've got to head into the Forbidden Forest first," Hagrid said. "You... you should go back to the castle. I'm terribly sorry, children. Next time, next time we'll have a proper talk..."

Tierra, Harry, and Ron were thus inexplicably ushered out, each of their pockets stuffed full of heavy Rock Cakes.

To be precise... Ron was the only one who found it inexplicable.

Harry was on the second level. He was almost certain that the item stolen from Gringotts was the grimy paper package Hagrid had taken them to collect from Vault 713 that day.

Tierra was on the fourth level. Not only did he know who wanted that package, but he also knew where the real Philosopher's Stone was.

He just did not know whether there was a long-bearded old man on the fifth level who liked Lemon Sherbet.