"You were accused of opening the Chamber of Secrets, expelled, and had your wand snapped. But Professor Dumbledore believed you were innocent. So do I." Harry lowered his voice until it sounded like a secret only the two of them could hear. "But I need to know—what exactly did you see that night fifty years ago?"
Hagrid's lips trembled. His fingers clenched the bedsheet tighter and tighter until he finally twisted a hole into it, exposing the gray-white cotton stuffing beneath. "Harry—"
"You have to tell me so I can help you. So I can prove your innocence." Harry laid his hand over Hagrid's fist. The fist was so large that Harry's hand could only cover the side of Hagrid's knuckles. "From the day I met you, you always told me, 'Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask.' But now is the time to ask."
Hagrid closed his eyes. On the face hidden beneath tangled hair and beard appeared something that was neither pain nor sorrow, but something more complicated—a helpless exhaustion that seemed to say, I thought I'd buried this in the ground, but now someone has dug it up again.
"I'll tell you," he said.
Hagrid's voice changed. It was no longer loud, honest, and booming, as if he had a megaphone built into him. It became low and slow, hoarse as though it had been dug up from deep underground, still carrying the raw smell of earth.
"That night fifty years ago, I was in the castle's underground passageways."
Dumbledore had told him not to take that route.
Fifty years later, whenever Hagrid passed that corridor on the second floor, he still remembered those words.
But he had been young then and had not understood Dumbledore's deeper meaning. Hagrid could leave through the castle's side door, cross the