As Filch was speaking.
Hagrid came striding toward them out of the darkness, Fang following behind him. Hagrid carried his enormous crossbow, with a quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder.
"It's about time," Hagrid said. "I've been waiting for half an hour. How are you, Harry, Hermione, and Tierra?"
"You shouldn't be so polite to them, Hagrid," Filch said coldly. "After all, they're here to be punished."
"So that's why you were late, is it?" Hagrid frowned at Filch. "Giving them a lecture, eh? This isn't your place to lecture people. Your job's done. I'm in charge from now on."
"I'll be back at dawn," Filch said. "To collect what's left of them."
He spoke viciously, then turned and headed toward the castle, his lantern swaying as it vanished into the darkness.
Malfoy turned to Hagrid. "I'm not going into that Forbidden Forest."
Ha ha, Malfoy's scared. What a coward!
Still holding Tierra's hand, Harry thought this in his mind, and Tierra heard it.
"..." Tierra was rather speechless. He tried to pull his hand free, but couldn't, so he could only let Harry keep holding it.
He had not learned the Peering spell just to listen to the thoughts of adolescent boys.
"If you want to stay at Hogwarts, you have to," Hagrid said mercilessly to Malfoy. "You did something wrong. Now you have to pay the price."
"Going in there to do work is servant's work, not something students should do. I thought we'd just have to write a self-criticism or something. If my father knew I was doing this, he would—"
"He'd tell you that this is what Hogwarts is like," Hagrid said roughly. "Write a self-criticism! What good would that do you? You've got to do something useful, or get out. If you think