"At the same time, you never expected," Harry's voice sank lower, as if he were stating a fact he had confirmed countless times and no longer needed to verify, "that Aragog would attack a Muggle-born student. You panicked. Before the Acromantula could feed, you stopped it. So Moaning Myrtle only died. She wasn't eaten."
Hagrid's lips moved. He was saying something, but his voice was so soft it sounded like a mosquito buzzing. Harry couldn't hear it, and he didn't want to.
"Hagrid." Harry's voice suddenly softened, soft as if he were calling an old friend's name, yet that softness carried something more unbearable than a shout. Disappointment. The sound of wind screaming past one's ears when falling from the highest place.
"The monster in the Chamber of Secrets was Aragog, wasn't it? You never put it in the Forbidden Forest. You put it in the Chamber of Secrets. It had always been beneath the castle, crawling through the pipes, waiting for your command. The recent attacks were Aragog's doing too, weren't they?"
No. Hagrid wanted to say. No. No. No. Every "no" lodged in his throat like a bone that had been chewed to pieces but could not be swallowed.
Hagrid's body suddenly lurched. He did not rise, nor did he fall. It was a brief, violent shudder, like something had struck him from within, like an earthquake. Tears still streamed down his face, but he had stopped crying. His sobs had ceased, trapped in his chest like water boiled dry in a pot, its bottom already scorched. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
It was not that there was no sound. His voice was simply too low for human ears to hear, low enough that only he himself could hear it. "Not... not Aragog... Aragog didn't...