"Hagrid, what's wrong? You look pretty down," Harry asked with some concern when he saw Hagrid's expression.
"Aragog's hurt, and badly, too," Hagrid said sadly.
Harry thought for quite a while but could not remember who Aragog was. Hermione, beside him, had a better memory. She recalled Hagrid mentioning him before: he was an Acromantula Hagrid had raised as a student.
"You mean that giant spider you raised?" Hermione asked. "Aren't Acromantulas supposed to be really powerful? How did he get hurt?"
Ron visibly lost some interest when he heard it was a giant spider. He disliked spiders and had ever since he was little.
"It was Fluffy," Hagrid said rather sadly.
"He seems to have started playing with the wolf demons in the Forbidden Forest and become their leader. Then Aragog's descendants provoked the wolf demons, so they took Fluffy along and wrecked Aragog's nest. His descendants managed to get him out, but he was still badly hurt."
Harry and the others all knew Fluffy. He was a three-headed dog Hagrid had raised, and he had even helped guard the Philosopher's Stone the previous year.
At this point, something had to be mentioned.
Originally, Harry and the others had thought the three-headed dog was an extremely powerful magical creature, so powerful that Quirrell-whom they had thought was Snape at the time-could not get past him.
But before Christmas that year, they had seen Professor Flitwick handle a basilisk with a five-star danger rating as easily as dealing with a slug, and that idea had changed.
Harry and the others could believe that Snape was not as powerful as Professor Flitwick. Harry had also examined him with Magic Perception. Snape's magical flame was indeed slightly smaller than Professor Flitwick's and Professor McGonagall's.
But the difference was not that great. Since