Chapter 121 Rubeus Hagrid's Melancholy

Friday.

After the two tough potion classes in the morning, Harry and Ron gathered together and whispered.

"I really want to see Snape's panicked expression after his conspiracy failed!"

Ron angrily pouted at Snape's receding back. He was targeted badly in the potion class just now.

Especially after Seamus exploded the crucible, causing Neville next to him to leave early to go to the infirmary for treatment, Snape used all his energy to ridicule him and Harry.

"And the big-headed young master and his followers, wait until their headmaster is dismissed, and see if they can still be so arrogant!"

Harry, who was also targeted, added that Malfoy and his two followers were Snape's best supporting actors. Every time Snape ridiculed Harry, Malfoy would bring Crabbe and Goyle to set off the atmosphere and make harsh laughs.

After the two imagined the tragic future of Snape and Malfoy, they decided to take Hermione with them to visit Hagrid in the hunting lodge in the afternoon.

Since they knew that Dumbledore had been paying attention to the trapdoor, they no longer worried about the Philosopher's Stone. But after all, they had spent a lot of time looking for Nicolas Flamel, so they thought about showing off in front of Hagrid...

And visit him by the way.

Gryffindor had no classes this afternoon, and Wood, the training freak, did not ask for extra training, so they had time to show Hagrid the results of their hard work.

The behavior was a bit childish, but Harry and Ron were not old, so it was normal for them to have such thoughts.

However, Hermione was not very interested in this.

"I still have to prepare a review plan for the final exam, I won't go!"

Hermione, who was writing furiously on the table, refused without raising her head.

"Final exams? Review plan?" Ron couldn't believe his ears. He shouted exaggeratedly, "Hermione, the exams are still hundreds of years away!"

"Twelve weeks," Hermione retorted, "Not hundreds of years, but a blink of an eye for Nicolas Flamel."

Harry and Ron looked at each other speechlessly. They didn't understand the world of academic masters.

"But we are not six hundred years old," Ron felt it necessary to remind the academic master in front of him, "and, don't you know everything? Why do you need to review?"

Ron was referring to Hermione's other nickname - Miss Know-It-All.

"Why should I review? Are you crazy? Do you know that we have to pass these exams to be promoted to the second grade? They are very important..."

Hermione ignored Ron's teasing reminder, but started to talk a lot, which made the two of them feel headaches. They even seemed to be persuaded by her and planned to review together.

Fortunately, Harry regained his sanity in time, "But, it doesn't matter if we spend an afternoon here, right? Don't you want to ask Hagrid to verify whether our inference is correct?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. There was no need to verify this kind of question with an obvious answer. Besides, Harry and Ron had said before that Dumbledore was watching the trapdoor, and she didn't care about what was going on there anymore.

But after all, they were friends who had read books together, and they invited her so sincerely. Hermione felt that it was acceptable to take out an afternoon.

"Okay, then I'll go with you."

Hermione raised her head proudly and reluctantly agreed.

After lunch, the three of them went to Hagrid's hunting lodge and knocked on his door.

The tall Hagrid opened the door for them.

"Is it you?" Hagrid didn't seem to be in a good mood. After opening the door, he just glanced at Harry and the other two, then stepped aside, "Come in."

Harry was a little puzzled by Hagrid's performance. Usually, if he saw him visiting, his attitude was quite enthusiastic.

"Hagrid, are you okay?" Harry asked with concern.

"Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine." Hagrid forced a smile and handed them three large wooden cups, "Come and have some tea, rock cakes?"

"No, thank you."

The three shook their heads decisively.

"You heard about it too, didn't you?" Hagrid sat opposite the three and sighed, "Thank you for coming to see me."

"What?" Harry and the other two were confused.

"Huh?" Hagrid raised his head in confusion, "Didn't you come to see me because you heard about those children?"

"Sorry, we don't know what you are talking about..."

Harry scratched his cheek awkwardly. Hagrid seemed to have encountered something unhappy, and they came to show off at this time, which seemed a bit unkind.

So he poked Ron beside him with his elbow and winked at him.

Ron understood Harry's meaning perfectly, and he immediately changed the subject, "So what happened? Can you tell us? Maybe we can help."

"Thank you, Ron," Hagrid smiled reluctantly, then shook his head, "But you can't help with this..."

He said in a depressed mood, "It's about the little guys in the Forbidden Forest. Recently, the Acromantula has been targeted by other animals. Many of their members have died in the past few days..."

Due to Fish, the number of Acromanthus spiders has been reduced seriously. As a gamekeeper, Hagrid naturally discovered this situation, but under the active cover-up of the group of magical creatures, he did not know that all this was done by Fish.

At first, Hagrid thought that the centaurs were the ones who took the lead, but when he found the centaurs, they denied it. When he asked them what was going on, he got a lot of weird replies.

Hagrid, who could not find the reason, could only ask other animals to stop targeting the Acromanthus spiders, but... it was ineffective.

This made Hagrid feel very sad.

"Acromanthus spider!"

However, Hermione didn't care why Hagrid was sad. She screamed loudly, scaring everyone else.

"That's a scary creature classified as XXXXX by the Ministry of Magic, and they're actually in the Forbidden Forest!"

"Actually, they're not that dangerous," Hagrid retorted, "The Ministry of Magic is too sensitive, Aragog and his children are all very kind."

Harry and Ron looked at each other with disapproval. Although they didn't know what the Acromantula was exactly, the XXXXX classification was enough to explain everything.

At the same time, they also roughly understood what had happened... Fike had said that he had been going to the Forbidden Forest to fight big spiders every night recently.

It seemed that he was not only fighting himself, but also brought his animal friends with him.

The two looked at each other and decided to keep silent about it.

And Hermione didn't know about Fike's night walk, because it involved their inadvertent betrayal of Fike, so Harry and Ron kept it a secret, and only told her that Dumbledore had been paying attention to the trapdoor.

In addition, the girls loved Fish so much that Harry thought that if he told Hermione that Fish had gone to the Forbidden Forest with his help to find trouble with spiders rated XXXXX...

Harry shuddered and became more determined to keep silent.

Even so, Hermione was still mad.

"Oh my God! There are such terrible creatures in the Forbidden Forest, and you actually take Fish in every weekend! What if he gets hurt?! What are Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall thinking? How could they agree to such a terrible thing!"

Hermione was so excited that she even ignored her idol, Professor McGonagall.

"Hey, don't get excited, Hermione," Hagrid quickly comforted her, "In fact, Professor McGonagall and I have an agreement not to take Fish to deal with magical creatures above the XXX level."

Although this agreement was broken on the first day...

Hagrid added silently in his heart, but like Harry, he wisely kept silent.

But Hermione still looked worried, and kept complaining in a low voice.

Harry saw that this would probably go on forever, so he quickly changed the subject.

"Actually, we came here to ask you for confirmation, Hagrid."

At this time, he could no longer care about Hagrid's feelings.

Besides, Harry also felt that Hagrid's sadness over a group of spiders was... also very strange.

"It's about Nicolas Flamel..."

"I've said it before, I won't tell you who he is!"

Hagrid interrupted Harry angrily, "This is not something you should know!"

"In fact, we found out who he was hundreds of years ago," Ron said proudly, as if he had discovered who Nicolas Flamel was, "We also know what the dog is guarding, the Philosopher's Stone..."

"What?!" Hagrid jumped up from the stool in surprise, interrupting Ron's boasting, "How did you know?!"

"Of course I found it by flipping through books," Ron thought of the difficult years back then, and he was no longer proud, saying with a melancholy face: "You can never imagine how many books we have flipped through during this period of time!"

Hermione glanced at him silently, without saying anything. She was still worried about Fish's affairs and didn't want to care about the Philosopher's Stone at all.

"Oh... is that so..." Hagrid looked a little flustered. Finally, he sighed dejectedly, "Well, even if you know this, don't tell anyone. This is not something you students should know."

"Of course we won't tell anyone," Harry frowned and said, "It will alert Snape who wants to steal the Philosopher's Stone."

"Huh? Snape?" Hagrid was slightly stunned. "You still doubt him? Impossible, Snape also helped to protect the Philosopher's Stone. He won't steal it."

"What?! Snape!!!"

This time it was Harry and Ron's turn to jump up in surprise. Even if they knew that Dumbledore was watching in secret, if Snape had known other mechanisms long ago, the Philosopher's Stone would still be very dangerous.

"Yes, Dumbledore borrowed Fluffy from me, and then asked a few teachers to design the mechanism," Hagrid recalled, "The deans of the four colleges were involved... Oh, yes, and Professor Quirrell, who is in charge of the Defense Against the Dark Arts class..."

"He was the last one to cast a spell because he had taken leave before. Of course, Dumbledore himself also cast a protective spell, so there is no need to worry about the Philosopher's Stone being stolen."

"By the way, when I took Professor Quirrell to design the mechanism, I happened to meet Fish." Hagrid chattered on.

Hermione, who had been mumbling, finally stopped when she heard Firth's name and turned to look at Hagrid.

As for Harry and Ron, they had heard Firth mention this before, so they were not surprised.

At the same time, they finally knew why Snape had been forcing Professor Quirrell, because apart from him, Snape probably had already figured out the magic of the other professors.

Fortunately, there were Fluffy and Professor Quirrell, and Dumbledore was also watching in secret.

Although he was still a little worried, Harry couldn't think of anything he could do for a while, and Hagrid began to avoid the question of the Philosopher's Stone after he finished speaking.

So the three of them sat for a while and left Hagrid's hut with a lot of sorrow.

……

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