Chapter 768 - 768: 0768 New Shock

"I always thought we were fri—"

Inside Hagrid's hut, the huge man was in tears.

Facing Sherlock, Harry, and Hermione, he poured out his troubles in a heavy voice.

"But now it turns out they only didn't eat me because Aragog ordered them not to!

"It's—it's just unbelievable!"

Listening to Hagrid, Harry and Hermione had no idea what to say.

Wasn't this obvious?

Expecting a colony of Acromantulas to override their instincts and not eat people—how could that ever have worked?

If anything, the fact that Aragog had kept them from touching Hagrid for all these years already showed his sentimental loyalty.

Now that Aragog was dead, that restraint was gone.

"Hagrid, I think you're pretty amazing!"

At this delicate moment, Sherlock offered his praise with complete sincerity.

Only the matter of the compliment came out as little awkward, "You actually managed to drag a giant Acromantula back here—out of a whole colony with a habit of eating corpses. Impressive!"

Harry: "..."

Not cool, man.

That was maybe a little too—

Afraid Hagrid would read too much into it, Hermione hurried to change the subject.

"Hagrid, you're not hurt, are you?"

"No—though Sherlock's right, hauling Aragog's body out of there was no easy job!"

Well. Turned out it wasn't Hagrid reading too much into things. It was her.

Watching Hagrid look so moved, Hermione was at a loss for words.

"I just wanted to give him a proper funeral... wanted to send him off right... is that so wrong?"

With that, Hagrid started sobbing again.

His sentimental display left Hermione utterly speechless.

At the critical moment, Harry stepped up without hesitation, patting Hagrid's elbow as he said: "Nothing's wrong... you didn't do anything wrong... it's the world that's wrong."

Sherlock let out a soft laugh at that and looked about to say something, but Hermione tugged at his sleeve.

He glanced at Hermione, shrugged, and walked over to the back window.

Hermione followed him over.

The two of them were greeted by a truly gruesome sight:

A massive dead spider lay on its back, its eight hairy legs curled and tangled together.

Even though the whole body had shrunk in on itself completely in death, still...

Not even Ron, who was terrified of spiders, and certainly not Hermione, who wasn't—neither of them could stop a shudder from running through them at the sight. Without thinking, she grabbed hold of Sherlock's arm.

How to put it?

The sight was simply too horrifying!

Sherlock hadn't been exaggerating one bit—dragging this thing back from the Forbidden Forest really did make Hagrid something special!

"Um... Hagrid."

Hermione turned her head, looking at their still-weeping giant of a friend with obvious discomfort.

"Are you really planning to bury it right here?"

"I want to put him behind the pumpkin patch."

Hagrid choked out. "I've already dug the grave. But I feel like I should say something—about the good times we had together—"

"The good times..."

Sherlock, Harry, and Hermione found it genuinely hard to imagine what kind of good times this giant creature and Hagrid could possibly have shared.

Strictly speaking, Aragog bore no small share of the blame for Hagrid's expulsion from school back in the day.

Next came the funeral.

The three of them followed Hagrid out into the back garden.

The moon cast a pale light through the gaps in the trees, mingling with the glow from Hagrid's window, illuminating Aragog's body where it lay beside a great pit. Next to the pit stood a mound of fresh earth ten feet high—just digging a hole that size had clearly taken visible, backbreaking effort.

Harry and Hermione had originally meant to cover for Sherlock.

After all, both of them knew that Sherlock's real motive for coming along this time was to get his hands on some high-quality venom.

But objectively speaking, his presence really had been a shot in the arm for Hagrid.

And with Aragog now genuinely dead, if his venom could be of use to Sherlock, that wasn't such a bad thing either. As it turned out, though, with Sherlock's quick hands, he didn't need either of their help at all.

Sherlock walked up to Aragog's head and crouched down, studying it for a moment.

In that instant, Harry and Hermione both thought they heard the faint clink of a bottle.

By the time Sherlock straightened back up, there was a brief flash of reflected light before it vanished into the folds of his school robes.

Hagrid, still off wiping his eyes, hadn't noticed a thing.

Harry: "..."

Both of them knew Sherlock had gotten what he came for.

Hagrid stepped forward, hauled up the massive spider's corpse, gave a great shout, and rolled it into the black pit.

The body hit the bottom with a horrible creaking crash, and Hagrid burst into tears again.

Seeing this, Harry could only grit his teeth and offer a couple of flattering remarks—something about how brave Aragog had been, how deep the bond between him and Hagrid had run—even he himself didn't believe a word of it.

But of course, Hagrid let out a wail and collapsed onto the dung heap, crying even harder: "That was... that was... beautiful, Harry!"

Because Hagrid couldn't manage to keep his emotions in check (no doubt it had something to do with his own suspension as well), the three of them stayed with him until quite late before finally leaving.

Even though Sherlock claimed he'd only come for the sake of that high-quality venom, Harry and Hermione could both tell that he genuinely cared about Hagrid too.

Even if it wasn't quite to the same degree as Harry and Hermione's own concern.

Still, that alone was enough to make the two of them happy.

Over the following days, the school seemed to settle back into its usual calm.

Everyone had more or less grown used to being down three professors on probation.

Professor Grubbly-Plank and Firenze, who was remarkably friendly toward humans, had both performed outstandingly, successfully filling in for Hagrid and Trelawney—two professors whose reputations hadn't been especially high to begin with.

Professor Grubbly-Plank needed no further introduction; her knowledge of magical creatures was every bit a match for Hagrid's.

But her way of thinking ran much closer to that of an ordinary person—she wasn't about to pick some obviously unsuitable creature to teach a class with.

As for Firenze—it had to be said, his teaching style left everyone raving about how brilliant it was.

Unlike the North Tower that Professor Trelawney had claimed for her classroom, Firenze taught in Classroom Eleven, down on the ground floor.

Except to call it a "classroom" hardly did it justice—according to students who'd taken his lessons, it felt more like standing in a forest clearing.

The classroom floor had become a soft carpet of moss, spreading in a fan shape between the ceiling and the windows.

Add to that the tree trunks, the boulders, the earthen ground, and the fresh, woodsy scent unique to living greenery, and compared to Professor Trelawney's classroom—the one that made everyone drowsy—it was a difference of night and day.

His teaching methods were unusual too. Rather than having everyone study tea leaves or palms the way Professor Trelawney did, he had them lie flat on the ground and watch the sky.

Trelawney had once had them study the stars as well, but Firenze's approach was far more grounded and practical.

He had everyone connect their observations to what they'd already learned in Astronomy class, and made it plain that Professor Trelawney's astrology was nothing but humans talking nonsense—claiming, for instance, that when Mars and Saturn formed a certain angle, it caused accidents like burns.

He didn't hold back at all in criticizing Professor Trelawney, either.

"Whether Sybill Trelawney can truly foresee the future, I couldn't say.

"But she spends nearly all her time on self-important nonsense—the kind of nonsense people generally call fortune-telling."

At first, Parvati and Lavender, loyal devotees of Professor Trelawney, had been rather indignant about it.

But as the course went deeper, even they came around.

Mainly because, compared to Professor Trelawney, the centaur Firenze clearly had real substance.

"Humans, actually, aren't very good at this sort of thing at all. Even centaurs only gained this ability after a very long span of years." Lavender was relaying Firenze's words to Ron.

"Because even centaurs get it wrong sometimes, believing in this kind of thing is really quite foolish."

"That does sound a lot better than Professor Trelawney," Ron agreed. "Sherlock, what do you think?"

"His priority isn't teaching his students knowledge for its own sake."

Sherlock said slowly, after hearing Parvati and Lavender's account.

"He'd rather people remember this: nothing is ever foolproof—not even a centaur's learning.

"It's more or less the idea of teaching someone to fish instead of just giving them a fish."

"Now I'm almost regretting not choosing Divination," Ron said, sounding a bit put out. "Compared to Defence Against the Dark Arts, it sounds a lot more interesting."

"You just hate Snape," Hermione said calmly.

"Maybe so—anyway, hasn't the probation for those three professors ended yet?" Ron said, unbothered by Hermione's teasing, and shrugged. "Easter break's nearly over!"

"Doesn't look like there's been any movement," Harry sighed. "Speaking of which, Ron, don't forget tonight's practice!"

As he said it, he cast a somewhat helpless glance at Lavender, who was practically glued to Ron.

"Even once the probation's over, Firenze won't be going back."

Parvati cut in.

"He told us in his very first lesson—it's because he agreed to work for Dumbledore.

"The other centaurs see that as a betrayal, and he's been driven out of his own home—the Forbidden Forest."

That evening's Quidditch practice turned out excellently—arguably the best practice session he'd had since becoming captain.

Every single player, at every position, performed at their absolute best.

At this rate, by the time the third term started, they were sure to beat Ravenclaw and claim the Quidditch Cup two years running.

"Harry, you can't go easy on them just because your girlfriend's on the other team!"

Ron said with a grin, as they headed back to the castle after practice.

"Oh, quit it, Ron!" Ginny said, unimpressed. "It's not like this is the first time you've played Ravenclaw—when has Harry ever done that?"

Harry shot Ginny a rather grateful look.

Ever since he and Cho Chang had started dating—no, actually, even before that—someone always brought this up before every match against Ravenclaw.

Of course, he knew perfectly well Ron was only teasing about it, and he trusted, just as Ginny did, that he wouldn't go easy on them.

That was just how friendship between guys worked—needling each other a little.

But having a sweet little sister figure willing to stick up for him still gave his ego a nice, solid boost.

"Ha, ha!" Ron rubbed his nose. "Ginny, you know I'm only joking!"

"Everyone knows you and Harry are good friends. If even you go around saying things like that, what will everyone else think?"

"Fine, fine, I was wrong, all right? Honestly, I can't deal with you..."

"You were wrong, plain and simple!"

The two siblings bickered their way back to the castle alongside the other Quidditch players, while Harry watched the whole scene with amusement. Strangely enough, in all this time, neither he nor Cho had brought up the upcoming match at all.

The two of them seemed to have reached a kind of unspoken understanding about it, as if the whole thing simply wasn't worth mentioning.

By the time the Gryffindor Quidditch team got back to the common room, they suddenly noticed something was off.

Everyone's expression was grim, as though something serious had happened.

"What's going on?"

Harry asked, baffled by what he was seeing.

"Someone else has been put on probation," Hermione said, choosing her words carefully as Harry stared at her in surprise. "It's Mad-Eye."

"What?"

Harry couldn't help but cry out.

Ron was waving both hands frantically. "No way—absolutely no way!"

"Yeah, Mad-Eye's a senior Auror himself. How could he possibly be put on probation?" Ginny asked, looking just as baffled.

"Because he isn't an Auror anymore, obviously."

Sherlock's voice cut in. He'd just walked in from outside the classroom, looking tired but at the same time somewhat excited. "That business with Moody at Hogsmeade a while back got dug back up. And at the same time, Umbridge has formally brought a motion to have Moody impeached, on the grounds of 'openly using an Unforgivable Curse in class.'"

"But—but wasn't that all over and done with ages ago?" Harry asked, baffled. "And it's not like the Unforgivable Curses were first demonstrated this year either?"

Their classmates all looked at Sherlock with curiosity.

Because this time, unlike the previous three probations, the news had only given them the outcome, with no explanation of the reasoning behind it. So the moment he'd heard about it, Sherlock had gone out to gather information.

By the time he came back, the Gryffindor Quidditch team had also just finished practice, timing it almost perfectly.

"It's not 'over and done with'—it was just pushed down for the time being."

Sherlock spoke in a rapid burst.

"And if it was pushed down, then naturally there's always the chance it could rebound.

"Recently, the families of wizards Moody had attacked in the past brought the matter back up again—the reason being that those wizards' bodies had developed lasting after-effects from Moody's attacks, and they're still lying in St. Mungo's right now.

"On top of that, a student also had an accident during Professor Moody's class on resisting the Imperius Curse."

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