"Hagrid actually brought a giant back too?" Hermione looked incredulous. "No wonder he's been getting hurt all this time. A fire dragon and a giant-I'm honestly amazed he's managed to look after them both without ending up disabled."
"Exactly." Ron nodded repeatedly, then looked a little puzzled. "I can understand why he didn't tell us about the fire dragon. After all, it might be Dumbledore's secret backup plan. But he told us he'd gone to visit the giants, so why didn't he tell us he'd brought one back?"
"That's what I can't figure out either." Harry shook his head.
"Thinking back, the last few times we went to Hogsmeade, we always saw Hagrid buying bags and bags of all sorts of food. I thought some animal in the Forbidden Forest had been hurt and needed him to look after it. Now that I think about it, it was for that fire dragon and that giant all along. He's really had his work cut out for him, looking after two huge creatures like that all by himself."
Ron nodded repeatedly too.
Ron wasn't sure how much a giant ate, but it certainly couldn't be a small amount. As for how much a fire dragon ate, he had heard Charlie talk about it countless times. Even allowing for exaggeration, it was still a staggering amount.
Ron even wondered whether Hagrid had spent his entire salary as a professor on feeding those two huge creatures.
"If Dumbledore asked him to do it, there should be funds set aside for it, right?" Harry said after some thought.
"Normally, yes." Hermione, however, had a different opinion. "But don't forget, Hogwarts isn't in its usual situation right now. Before, Dumbledore could definitely have applied for enough funding, but with Umbridge in the castle now, he's bound