"I knew Fudge had summoned you. When he notified me, he said he only wanted you to speak with Hagrid and help steady his emotions. I didn't stop you. Because I thought—perhaps seeing you would make Hagrid feel better."
She paused, and her fingers tapped once more. "So how did the visit go? Is the big man any better?"
Harry's lips moved. He wanted to say no. He wanted to say, "He's gone mad. He told me to get out. He doesn't want to see me ever again." He wanted to say, "His eyes were bloodshot, dried tears clung to his beard, his hands were shaking, and he looked like a tree struck by lightning."
But he said none of it. Because there was something in McGonagall's eyes—not indifference, not lack of concern, but a businesslike distance, as though she had put up a wall in advance to protect herself.
"He mentioned what happened fifty years ago." Harry lowered his voice until it was like a secret only the two of them could hear. "Moaning Myrtle's death. The opening of the Chamber of Secrets. And the Acromantula he kept, Aragog."
McGonagall's fingers stopped tapping. She lifted the coffee from her desk and gently stirred it with a spoon. Her lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
"How did you learn about these things?" McGonagall's voice was lower than before, as though she were asking a question she did not want to ask, but had to.
"Hagrid told me," Harry said. He was not lying. Hagrid had indeed mentioned Aragog, and sending him into the Forbidden Forest. But Hagrid had not told him the details—how he had hatched him, how long he had kept him in a cupboard, how he had evaded Filch's eyes, stolen food from the kitchens, and