Chapter 457 - 8: Instrument of Torture

Chapter 457: Chapter 8: Instrument of Torture

"All right, you’re a very cute child. Really, I’ve never seen a little girl as pretty as you in my entire life. But don’t come here again. There’s nothing fun here for you to... achoo!"

Yimi had barely gotten settled before Hagrid, keeping a considerable distance from her, started trying to send her away. His itchy nose left him with no spare attention for a child’s feelings.

He hugged the Neapolitan Mastiff he kept and buried the entire lower half of his face against the back of the dog’s head, apparently believing this might purify the air in front of him.

"You look down on cats, and you keep a dog. You’re an enemy of cats." Yimi stood in the doorway accusing Hagrid and stubbornly refused to leave.

When she first arrived, she had thought rather well of this world. Now Yimi was discovering that people chased her out no matter where she went, and her temper immediately flared.

Since when had the kitty ever suffered this kind of exclusion?

"Please, can somebody give me a towel to wipe my face?" Ron looked around helplessly, only to see Harry holding the Invisibility Cloak farther away from him. It hurt his feelings.

"Come on, Hagrid, can’t you endure it for a little while? She doesn’t seem to have cat hair on her, does she? Maybe it’s psychological. She’s an important eyewitness." Hermione tried to persuade him, as though she were the only one who still remembered why they had come.

"Oh, right. You haven’t come to ask me questions. You’ve brought an instrument of torture to interrogate me. I never should’ve told you I was allergic to cats," Hagrid grumbled.

In truth, with his long, naturally curly hair and huge beard, he looked considerably hairier than a seven-year-old girl.

Apparently satisfied that Ron was not going to wipe his face on the Invisibility Cloak, Harry finally got to the point. "Do you remember what I asked before, Hagrid? Are there snakes in the Forbidden Forest? Really huge ones? Or could a snake get inside Hogwarts castle?"

There was nothing especially strange about the question. Harry still remembered that last year there had been a three-headed dog inside the castle guarding the entrance to the place where the Philosopher’s Stone was hidden.

"A really, really big snake? That’s impossible. That would upset... well, it would upset the local ecosystem." Hagrid blew his nose.

Harry continued, "Yimi says she saw Riddle’s memories, and that there’s a place in the school specifically for keeping a giant snake. We thought you might know something..."

"Ridd—achoo!" In his agitation, Hagrid sneezed again.

Ron had learned his lesson and moved farther away before asking in surprise, "You know who Riddle is? I thought You-Know-Who’s real name was a secret."

They had only just learned that Riddle was Voldemort. Voldemort’s names always seemed to twist around in circles: first he changed his name to Voldemort, and then people became so afraid that to this day they only dared call him "You-Know-Who."

"How do you lot know he’s You-Know-Who? Oh, no, no, that’s not something for children like you. I can keep my mouth shut. That’s why Dumbledore trusts me." Hagrid was resolute.

"Hey, did you know Hagrid has toffee hidden in that jar?" Hermione called to Yimi, who was still refusing to leave the doorway.

"Candy?"

"All right! Riddle was my prefect!" Hagrid glared at Hermione and immediately confessed.

Each Hogwarts House selected prefects from its fifth-year students, one boy and one girl, and they kept the position until graduation.

Since Hogwarts had seven years, a House generally had six prefects at a time.

Seeing Hermione gently pick Yimi up to keep her from getting too close, Hagrid said dejectedly, "That year, I was keeping a spider under my bed. When it first hatched, it wasn’t even as big as Fang..."

"A spider? And you make it sound like some huge beast!" Ron recoiled another two steps in horror. "You kept it under your bed!"

"That year, a girl was attacked by some unknown creature in the girls’ bathroom, and she died. Then You-Know-Who... Riddle reported me. Everyone thought Aragog—that spider—had done it. I knew it couldn’t have been him, but Dumbledore was the only one who believed me."

Hagrid shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I was expelled. Dumbledore was kind enough to give me the job of gamekeeper for the Forbidden Forest."

The secret he had guarded so tightly was simply something disgraceful that he naturally did not want to tell people without a reason.

"That ’huge beast’ of a spider must have been punished, right?" Ron cared only about that. Otherwise, he felt he would never dare get up to use the toilet if he woke in the middle of the night.

"Of course not. I secretly released him into the Forbidden Forest. His children have already bred there for several generations. They hate snakes more than anything. I still visit them from time to time. If there had ever been a giant snake in the forest, I’d have known. It would affect the spiders’ survival." Hagrid took some toffee from the jar and tossed it to Yimi to keep her from coming closer.

Ron swore he would never go into the Forbidden Forest during the rest of his school years.

"That’s everything I know. It’s late, so take your ’instrument of torture’ and go back. One of these days, I’ll have to find out what you lot are allergic to!" Hagrid started ushering them out.

"Allergic?" Yimi caught the toffee and looked up in confusion at Hermione, who was holding her.

"Put simply, some people’s bodies always feel unwell around certain things. Hagrid, for example, is allergic to cats." Hermione stroked Yimi’s cat ears and helped put her shrine-maiden hat back on.

"Mmm..."

So that was it. She had misunderstood this giant. He was actually just a bad person by nature. Kidding.

Yimi walked toward Hagrid.

"I’ve already told you everything I know. Hurry and pull her away... Hm? I feel much better." Hagrid looked down in confusion at Yimi, whose raised hand was pressed against his belly.

...

"What did you do? Why did Hagrid’s allergy disappear after you touched him?" Hermione asked Yimi, completely baffled. Nothing in her store of knowledge could explain it.

"Love Train," Yimi answered simply.

After parting from the other three, Yimi was about to go eat with McGonagall, only to find McGonagall staring sternly at her again. Yimi had simply turned and run off to find Harry and the others just as McGonagall was about to question her.

"I think you had better explain what else you can suddenly pull out of nowhere." McGonagall stared at Yimi’s pockets, assuming they had been placed under an Undetectable Extension Charm, even though the Ministry strictly restricted that spell because of the potential for abuse.

"And these. For you." Yimi grabbed a handful of toffees. After setting aside half for Mama and Grandma, she split the remainder in half again for McGonagall.

McGonagall did not take them. Her lips twitched slightly. "Oh, dear. I’m afraid you won’t wriggle out of it this time. Perhaps you should turn out your pockets yourself. I need to make certain you won’t cause any more trouble."

Yimi pulled her pocket open. Inside was only a single piece of catnip that even Yimi had forgotten putting there.

She grabbed the catnip and handed it to McGonagall.

"What is this?" McGonagall asked.

"Catnip. Cats all like it," Yimi answered.

Professor McGonagall had spent many years as a cat herself and naturally knew perfectly well what catnip was. She reached out and confiscated it.